Employment of teachers

Education and the employment of teachers

I am writing on behalf of a teacher who has had a lot of problems over the years in finding suitable employment.
When he first qualified as a teacher in 1976 he had great difficulty getting his first post. The reason being that he was
newly qualified and schools wanted to employ experienced teachers

In 1990 the introduction of the Local Management of Schools regulations (LMS) altered the situation facing newly qualified
teachers they were to become the most sought-after group of teachers! Prior to the introduction of these regulations the local
authority paid the teacher’s salary. There was little reason for schools to consider whether to employ an experienced teacher or
a newly qualified one. In fact the newly qualified teacher would require ‘breaking in’ they need to be looked after, have untested paper
qualifications and they need to use extra resources.

We hoped that the situation would be resolved when the new labour government took office but this was not to be the case. In fact the
situation has got worse, and is about to get even worse with the new Education White Paper 2006

The reality is that there is probably no shortage of teachers, many have just given up trying to gain employment. A few die-hards soldier on as supply teachers.

Many teachers report that LMS has lead to dispirited staff , inability to find employment in another school, favouritism and behaviour more
appropriate to a fascist state than a British school. The head teacher has always had great power but this has increased with LMS as
they now have economic control and are free to exert pressure (supported by their personally appointed senior management team)
on teachers to conform to the way he/she wants the school to run and its direction.

Didn't the local authority (LA) once have the power to employ staff for a particular school and redirect them to another school if they felt that it was
necessary or desirable, taking into account the interests of the teacher and the school. Didn't also the LA have its own inspectorate which could look after
staff and have a greater role in training and didn't head teachers have to take more care when making decisions that may have a discouraging effect on the morale of staff?

Yours sincerely

A. Citizen

A reply to the letter to the PM above has been included below. The text of the letter and formatting is identical to that received the only alteration
being the addition of paragraph numbers for reference

department for

education and skills

creating opportunity, releasing potential, achieving excellence

Castle View House P.O. Box 12, Runcorn Cheshire, WA7 2GJ

info@dfes.gsi.gov.uk
www.dfes.gov.uk

Our ref: 2006/0215873 13 April 2006

Dear Citizen

Thank you for your letter of 27 February addressed to the Prime Minister
about teacher shortages and the employment of teachers. The Prime Minister
receives a large amount of correspondence and is unable to answer it all
personally. It is for this reason that your letter has been passed to the
Department for Education and Skills and I have been asked to reply.

Let me begin by saying that the success of the Government's recruitment
and retention policies has undoubtedly created more competition for posts
than only a few years ago. We also know that the availability of teaching
posts can vary from one part of the country to another. Teacher numbers
are now at their highest since 1981. In January 2005, the number of
full-time equivalent (FTE) regular teachers in the maintained sector rose
by 4,200 (1 %) to reach 431,000. This means that there are now 30,000 FTE
more teachers than in 1997, an increase of 8 per cent. You may also be
interested to know that we have recently improved the financial incentives
for trainee teachers and newly qualified teachers of priority subjects.

At the same time as the general increase in regular teacher numbers, the
total number of teacher vacancies fell by 140 to 2480 in January 2005.
This gives an overall vacancy rate in primary, secondary and special
schools for January 2005 as 0.7%, compared to 0.9% in 2003. This means the
numbers of teachers in service are currently at their highest since 1981.
However, although the overall picture is healthy, there are still
shortages of teachers in London and the South East, and in certain
secondary subjects, particularly in mathematics and science subjects.

You mention teaching posts being filled by newly qualified or less
experienced teachers at the expense of more experienced teachers. We
recognise that in some circumstances - for example, where school budgets
are tight and there is little to choose between two good candidates -
schools may prefer to appoint a good but less experienced or younger
teacher who will cost less to employ than his or her more experienced and
more expensive counterpart. However, Ministers do not believe that there
is any evidence that schools generally choose to appoint cheaper teachers
on that basis alone. Schools recognise the benefits of a wide range of
ages, skills and experiences amongst their workforce.

I have noted your comments about schools recruiting their own staff. I
should explain that since local management was first introduced some 15
years ago under the term 'Local Management of Schools' (LMS), it is
essentially for governing bodies to weigh up the merits of individual
candidates when they interview prospective new teachers. They have to
decide whether they want to recruit more experienced staff who may cost
more, or employ cheaper newly qualified teachers, who may bring new
"blood" and fresh ideas in to a school. This is purely a governing body
decision and thus a cornerstone of local management.

Yours sincerely

Elaine Gordon

Public Communications Unit

A reply to the letter
from the Department for Education and Skills is posted below.

Yes, I understand that the PM is a very busy man, but I sure he
likes to keep in touch and has staff to manage his mail. Unfortunately,
your letter does not actually address the main issue that was raised in my
letter. That there are teachers of outstanding quality who are unemployed
because of Local management of Schools (LMS).

The competition for posts that you mention, is I am sure, only
among newly qualified teachers. Government policy, has as you point out,
even encouraged the supply of new teachers, at the expense of
well-qualified and experienced teachers. Teacher numbers may be at their
highest since 1981 but this still does not meet the increase in children
to be taught. Classroom size increased over that period to a high.

There may be fewer vacancies now but I do not have statistics for
classroom size beyond 1999. The simply appalling truth is that according
to your figures, which may be better or worse; since your data is based on
Jan 2005 figures, there are still over 3,000 vacancies!

School budgets tight? Surely this is part of my argument, because
of LMS there is likely to be mismanagement both of staff and capitation.
There should, surely, be little variation in funding of schools; the
funding for schools should be fair, either all schools find themselves
with a tight budget (not enough money) or none. The tendency for
interviewing panels is, to ask: do we really need this chap given his
remarkable experience and qualifications, for this particular post?
Bearing in mind that several thousand pounds will be saved if the younger
less experienced teacher is appointed. Invariably, the cheaper teacher
will be employed.

LMS is not better for staff or children it was mistakenly brought
in by the last Conservative Government. The proper management of education
should be by professional staff within each Local Educational authority
(LEA) and these LEA’s should have the power to appoint staff for placement
within that authority. Unfortunately, mentioning Ministers’ beliefs is
rather inappropriate at this time as our present Prime Minister has been
badly let down by some of his Ministers.

The “new blood” you refer
to, that a newly qualified teacher could bring fresh ideas to a school is
invariably, the result of that trainee’s educational development, the
ideas have come from their training; from older experienced
educationalists, and is rather insulting to those teachers who continue to
reflect, read, and add to their academic and practical skills
qualifications usually at their own expense.

Yours
sincerely

A. Citizen

PS. I note that our Prime Minister didn’t appoint “new blood” to his recent
reshuffle. Of course not, he needs the most experienced personnel by his
side.

A reply to the letter above is
included below. I have added paragraph numbers to facilitate ease of
reference and the formatting has been changed as the document could not be
easily OCR scanned

department for

education and skills

creating opportunity, releasing potential, achieving
excellence

Castle View House P.O. Box 12, Runcorn Cheshire, WA7 2GJ

info@dfes.gsi.gov.uk
www.dfes.gov.uk

Our ref: 2006/0225792 1 June 2006

Dear Citizen,

Thank you for your
further letter about the recruitment of teachers and school funding
methods. As previously stated, Ministers do not believe there is any
evidence that schools generally choose to appoint cheaper teachers.
Schools recognise the benefits of a wide range of ages, skills and
experiences amongst their workforce

In addition, the Government actively encourages people who wish to return to teaching and
there is plenty of help available for qualified teachers wanting to return
to the profession. For example, the Training and Development Agency for
Schools (TDA) runs a Return to Teach programme which is specifically targeted at those
who are contemplating a return to teaching. The TDA's recent survey on
those completing a returner course revealed that 61% of those teachers who
had completed a course had already returned to teaching and a further 13%
are actively looking for teaching posts.

With regard to your comment on
class sizes, in fact, the overall teacher: pupil ratio has dropped each
year since 2000. In January 2006, the overall teacher: pupil ratio was 17.2
and the number of pupils in maintained nursery and primary schools has
been falling since

This trend is expected to continue over the next
few years. It is also projected that the number of pupils in maintained
secondary schools will fall over the next 10 years. As you are aware, the
number of teacher vacancies in maintained schools has dropped each year
since The latest count shows in January 2006 shows there were 2,200 teacher
vacancies in England. Details can be found on the Department's website at
http://www.dfes.qov.uk/rsqatewav/DB/SFR/s000653/index.shtml

I have noted your further comments about local management of schools (LMS), including
staffing powers in schools. There are no plans to reverse the delegation
of such powers which have been generally accepted by schools, and who have
become accustomed to delegation in its various forms since the first
introduction of local management in the early 1990s

The Department
accepts that LMS can be challenging for some schools, but in these
circumstances heads and governing bodies should seek support from the
education finance team in the local authority (LA).

In terms of school funding, the Department has regular meetings with our education
partners - national bodies representing LAs, head teachers, teacher unions
and governors; they have not expressed any similar views in favour of
reversing local management.

Phil Turner

Public Communications Unit

A reply to the letter above is published below some considerable time after receiving the letter.

Mr Turner's letter argues from an initial assumption stated at paragraph one above: that ministers do not believe there
is any evidence that schools generally choose to appoint cheaper teachers.

The evidence that ministers receive on this issue is hardly likely to be forthcoming is it? What can teachers do apart from complain to their union? Teachers are
also likely to feel demoralised. Are schools going to tell anyone that they appoint the cheaper teacher? The published letter clearly states how difficult it was for
a highly qualified teacher to get appointed or reappointed.

In fact there are no statistics collected on the appointment of school teachers and the pay scale on appointment. The government are at fault in not collecting
that statistical information. The question is why do they decline to collect that information?

What was happening was schools were NOT employing newly qualified teachers as they
preferred teachers with experience. The salary of the
newly appointed teacher was being paid by the local authority, so why worry about the cost of paying the newly appointed teacher? This situation however, is undesirable as newly
qualified teachers were virtually unemployable.

I do not doubt that the government through its education department actively encourages people who wish to return to teaching to do so. It would seem that the Department for Education
or whatever it is called at present has been kept unaware of the reality of teacher employment though.

I am unwilling to comment on class size as although relevant, one can't argue with a policy that is content to
tolerate 2,200 teacher vacancies! Teaching French to a class of 25 or more
is one thing, in practical subjects space and equipment restricts class size to 20.
I presume that the stats include small A level classes rather than core
subjects.

The problem is local management of schools (LMS) as there is some assumption that this will be good. The skill of advisors in the LEA seem to have been marginalized. I was told
some years ago that microcomputers as made
by Microsoft and IBM, for example, had no place in secondary education. Now (2006) we have suites of PCs and Macs in primary schools. So much for the ignorance of school senior management.

There will be cases where schools are not able to manage their finances as teachers are not usually skilled in financial
management, additional staff is needed, whereas the LEA would normally prior
to LMS manage capitation.

But the crucial factor is that the LEA could
appoint teachers to a particular school. They would be keen to employ
experienced teachers and schools would tend to compete with each other to get
the most experienced teachers.

At present the quality of education in the UK is
dependent on the school, or rather each school, and its head
teacher and staff. It is no wonder that we have schools that have to be put into special measures